University-wide entrepreneurship education in China’s higher education institutions: issues and challenges

ABSTRACT

The rise of university-wide entrepreneurship education (EE) programmes in the past two decades is witnessed both in developed and developing regions. The ‘Mass Entrepreneurship and Innovation’ strategy introduced in China in 2014 and series of policies issued afterwards highlight the increasing importance of entrepreneurship, and the parallel promotion of university-wide EE throughout the country. Based on a semi-structured interviews and policy document reviews, this article interrogates the issues and challenges in university-wide EE programme implementation in China, with special reference to Zhejiang province. This study identified four key issues and challenges: the struggle of pursuing ‘legitimacy’, varied models-development of EE, lack of entrepreneurship faculty staff and experts, and the lack of cooperation among stakeholders. This article recommends the need for an interdisciplinary development of EE and an active engagement of various stakeholders to promote a sustainable EE programme in China.

KEYWORDS:

• Entrepreneurship education
• innovation
• university entrepreneurship
• curriculum
• education development

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).